[StickyMayhem]kieth4- Seemingly absurd note appeal for misunderstood rules?

[kieth4]

BYOND account: kieth4
Character name: Lukas Beedell
Ban type: Note
Ban Length: N/A
Ban reason: Stickymayhem/(Jack Steiner) has created a note for Kieth4
Asked not to use 'sus' on it's own even if describing something like a moving box as part of the crack down on overused meme terms. While contextual, even something like "That box is pretty sus" would have been more appropriate. Disagreed in conversation so noting to track that the conversation was had.
Server you were playing on when banned: Terry
Your side of the story:

Firstly, I'd like to post the ticket discussion that we had: https://atlantaned.space/banbus/ticket/4220c2020f91e369

Now secondly I would like to add that the explicit admin ruling about this suggests that when used in context 'sus' by itself is not against the rules.

Sticky claims that he's enforcing the spirit of the rule here but I don't see what he means by it.

"Over utilizing any flavor of the month meme, like "imposter" or "sus" is a bit too OOC IC. Obviously if you have a reason to use them, like calling someone suspicious with sus its fine. However blurting them out at random is a bit much and we're cracking down on it. "

In specific:

"Obviously if you have a reason to use them, like calling someone suspicious with sus its fine"

Sticky here is claiming to be enforcing the spirit of the rules.

I'm not trying to misuse the ruling, I'm applying the spirit of the ruling and fixating on the letter of the law is not useful when it can be interpreted in either direction. The goal is to reduce lazy, memey roleplay and that's what I'm doing here. You lazily said "sus" because it's convenient in the same way people yell "its a rev" before dynamic to lazily call out the gamemode

I saw a box moving into bridge through the open doors into bridge so refered to it as "sus". I will continue to use sus in this context as it's correct and within the rules- Unless there is some admin only ruling that we players aren't made aware of there's nothing wrong with it. I also don't feel that it detracts from the roleplay experience, there is 0 difference between me saying suspicious or it's shorthand sus. I was not saying in some funny meme amogus context, I was refering to a player engaging in suspicious activity.

I want the note removed as I don't believe I deviated against the spirit of the ruling nor did I claim that I was going to. Instead, I was going to contextually to keep using sus to describe situations that are somewhat suspicious as it's a shorthand habit I've picked up which as long as it isn't used for amogus style convos should be fine.

At the start of the ticket sticky says

"I've been told to ban people who say sus now"

Which looking at the rules provided seems to present a gross misunderstanding of what they mean.

I don't know what spirit exactly was being enforced here.

Although I'll reply here obviously if sticky or anyone else wants to add anything I'd like the headmins to weigh in right from the start as I feel me and sticky reached an impass within the ticket itself as I posted above.

Thank you very much :)

[Stickymayhem]

This is a discussion that's going to involve a lot of nuance because it's about language, what's appropriate, context and all the most frustrating stuff to deal with in rulings. I expected an appeal and I think there's a precedent to be set here. I think it's important that we focus on the explicit ruling made here rather than trying to interpret other people's language, but I will talk about the MSO MOTD briefly since Kieth4 brought it up. The explicit ruling, as I see reasonable to set a precedent for is as follows:

"While the words "sus" and "zamn" (and other flavour of the month memes like it) used in context are fine, they should not be a substitute for normal communication. Replacing sentences with shorthand memes containing mostly OOC context has a tendency to deviate IC communications away from any level of RP. With that in mind, using them in a sentence is fine, but blurting them out as exclamations is not. For example: "That box is pretty sus" would be completely fine, but just saying "sus" at a suspicious box, is not."

I'd like the focus of the discussion to remain on that ruling and what it means to enforce, but when it comes to the MOTD, I think there's a reasoned argument that can be made for my interpretation. As Kieth4 mentioned, the MOTD states:

► Show Spoiler

"Over utilizing any flavor of the month meme, like "imposter" or "sus" is a bit too OOC IC. Obviously if you have a reason to use them, like calling someone suspicious with sus its fine. However blurting them out at random is a bit much and we're cracking down on it. "

Clearly the intent here is to reduce the casual, lazy usage of terms like "imposter" or "sus" and I'm throwing zamn in with this group as well. The key phrase "Obviously if you have a reason to use them, like calling someone suspicious with sus its fine" seems at first glance to contradict my ruling, but the issue, like with all contextually based rulings (which this phrase is mentioning, since reason = context) is it's a spectrum. I can manifest literally any reason for saying "sus" and therefore never be subject to the rule. I could say "SUS!" to describe bumping into an invisible ninja, an airlock being bolted open, a bloodstain, a masked Unknown crewmember, something said on commons, or a moving box. Essentially, if we interpret the text as Kieth4 has done, this entire "crackdown" is fundamentally unenforceable. These statements are always made "with context" to one extent or another, so clearly this can't be the spirit of the ruling: if it was, the ruling would be meaningless and unenforceable.

I believe a more reasonable reading would be that "calling someone suspicious" implies using the word in a contextual sentence. You are calling someone sus: "That guy is pretty sus" or "That box is sus" in this case. You can technically call someone sus just by blurting out "SUS!" but this is the exact kind of behaviour we're trying to encourage, and contextually the "That guy is-" is implied.

For the note itself:

► Show Spoiler

I want the note removed as I don't believe I deviated against the spirit of the ruling nor did I claim that I was going to. Instead, I was going to contextually to keep using sus to describe situations that are somewhat suspicious as it's a shorthand habit I've picked up which as long as it isn't used for amogus style convos should be fine.

While I know you're reasonable I did get the distinct impression you were both disagreeing with the ruling (A common indication that a ruling won't be adhered to) and that you stated you would continue to do the behaviour I was advising you against.

It wouldn't be a note if you hadn't given me the impression you're likely to do it again, but as is it's worth letting other admins know you've explicitly been told not to do it

If I see something suspicous I will remark that it's "sus". It isn't blurting it out at random but instead saying it within context which I fully believe the ruling allows.. This will ofc be brought to forums (I'm just warning you in advance lad.)

It's a bit of a paradox of course, because you're only getting the note because you oppose the note, whereas if you were fine with the ruling you wouldn't be noted because the conversation wouldn't be worth marking since you agree with the ruling. We can get wrapped in loops here but the note was specifically placed because you disagreed with the ruling and expressed that you would push back against it/take it to the forums, and you said "If I see something suspicious I will remark that it's "sus"." which suggested to me you were going to continue the behaviour, and so another admin telling you not to do it would benefit from the context of our previous discussion.

In part, I noted you because you wanted to complain about the ruling and having no note would make that impossible, so hashing it out on the forums was probably a better way to handle it than a weird half measure of "Don't do this" "I disagree" and then leaving it at that and relying on Rule 6 without offering you an opportunity to combat it. Felt a bit cheap. It's worth noting that the note itself is pretty neutral and just mentions that we had a conversation. I know there's varying views on whether notes themselves are punishments but I don't think we need to delve into that discussion on top of this one. The note itself is far less important than the precedent and ruling.

This pretty much marks the end of the discussion where it boils down to the ticket, the exact scenario and the MOTD ruling.

So let's get on to the meat of this discussion Sticky why the fuck should anyone care if people are saying "sus" or "zamn" you MRP cringelord?:

► Show Spoiler

I believe there has been a general decline in the quality of roleplay for a while, and I think lack of enforcement on difficult nuanced issues like this one is a big reason why. As evidence for this decline, there is a similar discussion that's extremely relevant in a 2017 Headmin ruling. We've stopped enforcing this ruling because we've slipped below even this level of roleplay expectation (and because the arguments got harder for it when dynamic made it less blatantly metagaming). Today I see this all the time:

viewtopic.php?f=33&t=12077#p316576

It's OOC in IC if you say something similar to "It's revs" but it's okay if you say "There is a revolution." Basically make it sound like you're not referencing the fact that you're in a round.

These rulings are specifically poorly enforced because the arguments are hard to make and the lines are hard to define, so we skew towards the easier method of letting things slide, but standards fall and roleplay declines. When I talk about roleplay, I'm specifically referring to "Playing a character on a space station" and the demands for that really aren't very high. The scenario is silly and silliness is perfectly acceptable, but playing as a self-insert barely present in RP is an issue because it has a chilling effect on the freedom of others to actually roleplay. If you're surrounded by people who flipclapspin everywhere and communicate primarily in one word OOC memes like "sus" and "zamn" you just aren't able to treat them like characters, and that makes you unable to play one. By allowing this freedom to not roleplay, the freedom of others to roleplay at all is taken away. In choosing between these two freedoms, I'm willing to prioritize those that wish to roleplay to any extent (again just, acting at a basic level like a spaceperson on a silly space station instead of a video game player) over those that don't. I think this is a net positive for the server and one I'm willing to try to maintain the standard for.

On LRP (/tg/ classic) the expectation isn't meaningful backstories or even not naming the station "fuckville usa" it's just to roleplay at all. These memes are the genuine bottom level of effort and indistinguishable from if we had no roleplay at all. It's the kind of thing I'd expect from hippie players or the lobby of any game with no roleplay component whatsoever. I have no problem with the memes themselves, I use them myself, but I have a problem with the decline of RP and this is where I've set that line.

I'm happy to hear arguments against any of these points, but ultimately this will come down to a headmin ruling/policy discussion and there's a lot of areas we can get lost in that are meaningless. I'm open to any modifications to the note or removal, but the precedent should be set.

[kieth4]

I'm not going to convince you- and you're not going to convince me. I don't understand why you think someone seeing something suspicous and saying "sus" leads to a decline in roleplay- Yes. If people were spamming it in some form of lrp way flip clap spinning as you described it would be unbelieable and leaning towards nrp but in this scenario that isn't the case. I feel that we're in no place to police people's rp to this extent especially on lrp- Some people just might say "sus" then develop from it if it's a good faith sus, hell maybe they even move on with their days. I'm against the notion that we should police language to this extent if it's in good faith considering people say "sus" "lol" "lmao" and other things irl.

[Cobby]

We already have this nuance with “it’s” and “there is” when it comes to game types (mobile posting so can’t crop any policy screenies) so I don’t think “sus” (you will literally never say this in real life outside of imitating internet culture / amogus) versus “that’s sus” (shorthand for suspicious which you can realistically use in a real scenario) is an unfair ask relative to existing policy. “Sus” is not word for word disallowed but I think the situations and usage is similar when compared to what a character devoid of OOC concepts including FoTM internet memes would say in a situation where X is present, be it a revolution or a suspicious individual.

1) if you DISAGREE, can you explain when you think “sus” is ok ON ITS OWN while abiding by the policy mentioned above?

2) if you AGREE (regardless of your distaste of above ruling against in LRP), then what would your note fall under if it’s not factually untrue and it wasn’t embellished with overly harsh connotations? If you think they’re comparable but you just think the whole shebang is dumb then I think you’re in the wrong section aka this should be contested in policy since the current ruling disallows those sort of usages.

[kieth4]

I believe sus is ok on it's own because it's simply shorthand for suspicious. You claim that you will never say this in real life but I think that's just a case of you being a boomer, people use sus in conversations now. It happens. It's been a word leveraged in this community by itself for a while to mean just that suspicious- Calling something suspicious (sus). In my eyes this is the same as pointing at someone and saying "tot" which is also not against the rules.

[iwishforducks]

Hopefully this isn’t too peanuty, but; for what it’s worth I used to play a lot of Trouble In Terrorist Town (a game of suspicion), and I can say that the word “sus” was used way before Among Us was even created in the first place. Additionally, Tyler The Creator is credited with conceiving the word in the rap scene all the way back in 2013.

[NamelessFairy]

We believe that there was valid context for the usage of the term sus, as well as its usage not being excessively OOC and thus we do not see this as a rule violation and will be removing the note.
To add however, there are better ways for you to refer to suspicious incidents ICly as sticky has told you in your ticket and we'd advise that you try to use these in the future to avoid additional incidents like this where its usage can be mistaken for ooc in IC
We'd also like to provide further clarification of what the intent of the MOTD ruling was initially, the flavour of the month meme forbiddance was introduced last term with the intent of preventing "people screaming dumb flavor of the month memes" in a NRP context, an example of this given when the rule was created is a player "screaming "SUS" in the bar several times". would be actionable.

Headmin Votes:
NamelessFairy: Remove Note
Dragomagol: Remove Note
RaveRadbury: Recused due to election
Timberpoes (Covering for Rave): Uphold - Having looked back at the original reasoning for the memo Sticky is relying on, the note is not within the spirit of that memo's intent. However, admins should feel that they have the headmin team's support in maintaining a workable roleplaying floor on the LRP servers. Even with the full context of the logs and kieth4's explanation, their use of "sus" as a single-word ad-hoc comment fell below even the lowest standard I expect for roleplay on LRP. Admins should be allowed to note this. RP levels, meme usage and the memo Sticky relied on are topics far better suited to policy and administrative discussions than the narrow scope of a ban appeal.